The Best of Warm River

We've met people from all over the world here at Warm River – as well as people from our local community of Ashton and the surrounding “big cities” of Rexburg and Idaho Falls.  Here – in no particular order – are glimpses of the best of what the campground and its campers have brought to us.

Best family reunion t-shirt:  The Dye family.  Every family member, starting with the first child, wears a number indicating the order in which they came into the family.  The eleven children are, of course, numbers 1 – 11.  As spouses were added and grandchildren born, each got the next number in sequence.  The youngest child at the reunion wore #71.

Best fitness tradition:  The Nielsen Family 5K.  They start at Bear Gulch and run down the Railroad Grade Trail.  This year’s winner finished in just over 21 minutes.

Best pole dance:  Cheri shimmying down the fee tube to get into position to open it.  Note:  AuDi Campground Services Uniform is required apparel. 

Best crazy tradition:  The ParkView Ward’s Big Chill.  They jump into the river at 10:00 PM and float down to the group site.  Participants get a t-shirt.

Best acronym:  ALPOT – annoying little piece of trash – which we pick up quite frequently. 

Best service call:  Ben, a camper from Shelley, noticed that we had a broken vent cover on our trailer.  A week after his family left the campground, they came back with a new vent cover, and Ben climbed on top of the trailer to replace it.  We paid him for the vent cover but he wouldn't take any money for his labor or his travel. 

Best cobbler:  Also the Dye family, although the cobbler master married a Crockett so we got this cobbler at both the Dye and the Crockett reunions.  The secret ingredient is cream cheese, and while he didn't give me the recipe, I found one online that is similar. 

Cream Cheese Peach Cobbler

Ingredients:

9 Cups chopped Fresh Skinless Georgia Peaches

1 8-oz Package Of Philadelphia Cream Cheese

1 18-oz Package Of Vanilla Cake Mix

1 Cup Water

1 Cup Sugar

1 tsp. Cinnamon

1/2 Cup Unsalted Butter, softened

Preparation Instructions:

Spread peaches in bottom of 12-inch Dutch oven.  In a small mixing bowl, whisk together the sugar and water, stirring until all of the sugar completely dissolves. Evenly pour this mixture over the top of the chopped peaches. Next sprinkle the fresh ground cinnamon over the top of the peaches, then follow that by sprinkling on the vanilla cake mix over it all. Drop small clumps of cream cheese and butter evenly over the top of the cake mix.

Bake with 20 coals on top and 10 on bottom for 35 – 45 minutes.

Most inspiring visitors:  Dirk and Trudy, raising money for charity on the Model T World tour. 

http://www.tfordworldtour.org/

Most inspiring campers:  The cyclists riding the Tour Divide Trail. 

Best daddy-daughter date:  Dave and Emily from Tennessee, riding the Tour Divide Trail together – but in a far more civilized fashion.  After they left our campground they spent three nights in the Jenny Lake Lodge.

Most exotic names:  Bernadina, Leo, Donato, and Agnesa, the children of Lawrence and Evalinda from Northern California.

Best prank:  The Hanson family’s stuffed skunk.  I still laugh over how I fell for that one.

Best crossing guard:  Sarah, who turned three on July 29, helped her grandparents park their trailer by standing in the middle of the road to stop us in our golf cart.  After the trailer was securely parked, she let us pass.  Sarah was also kind enough to invite us to her birthday party – complete with pink cupcakes.

Best coffee date:  A French trio, who patiently put up with my blundering French, invited us to have coffee with them after their picnic.  They showed us photos of their horseback trip to this area – 20 years ago.

Best fly fisherman:  Ghislain, also from France.  I have no clue how good he was at “la peche a la mouche,” but it was delightful speaking French with him.

Best camp host gift:  Come for a visit!!!!  We're here until the end of September.

Being Miss Trunchbull

 Warm River Campground has a group site consisting of a large pavilion, five tent sites, and lots of parking.  The site is available by reservation only, and from June forward is pretty much reserved every day until Labor Day. 

The first group to use our group site this year was a father-son campout.  About eighty dads and sons of all ages converged within a very short time on our pavilion, parking lot, and tent area.  I think there is an unwritten rule of any father-son outing that no one should be able to tell the fathers from the sons.  For one night only they ALL get to be little boys.

It seemed that with this group, all I said was “No.”

                “No, you can’t park there.  We need to leave space for other vehicles.”

                “No, you can’t put your tent there.  That spot is reserved for another camper.”

                “No, you can’t build a fire in another campsite.”

                “No, you can’t take your ATV off the trailer.”

    “No, you can’t take your ATV off the trailer and drive it outside of the campground.”

                “No.  No.  No.  No.  No.”

One of the dads called me on it.  “Don’t you hate always having to be the bad guy?”  He went on.  “I’m going to call you Miss Trunchbull.”  For those, like me, who had no idea who Miss Trunchbull is, she is the wicked headmistress in the film, Matilda.  I still haven’t seen the film, but the Wikipedia review refers to her as sadistic.  Ouch.  I suppose it could have been worse.  He could have called me Professor Umbridge.

The Forest Service imposes rules within the campground.  These rules are for the safety and comfort of the campers and to ensure the safety and preservation of the local wildlife.  If that means I have to be the wicked headmistress to get campers to comply, I guess I’ll wear the label gladly. 

The good news is that both the Forest Service and the Fremont County Sheriff’s Department have my back.  The better news is that we captured our “lessons learned” from this first group and incorporated them into our process for checking groups in.  (There I go again, talking like a process engineer.)  We've had no problems managing the group site since. 

Of course, we haven’t had another father-son campout since.  Wish us luck on the next one!

Zen and the Art of Campground Maintenance

When we interviewed for our job here at Warm River, we were told that this campground was the showplace of the Ashton/Island Park Ranger District’s campgrounds.  Our new management has exacting standards on how our campground should appear and how we need to maintain it.

 

ATVs are not allowed in this campground.  Period.  So this year we are driving around in a green and beige golf cart which we've dubbed “The Maserati.”  This year we do our daily work in two “shifts.” We clean the restrooms first, and then we do our site preparation.

We have 10 vault toilets in the campground – twice as many as last year.  The cleaning procedure hasn't changed.  I’ll spare you the details.  We expect the cleaning frequency to increase on the weekends when the campground is full.

All our sites are very well manicured.  Our maintenance couple mows the lawn and trims the edges – including around the large rocks that frame the RV sites.  It’s our job to ensure that the picnic tables, grills and fire pits are kept clean. 

We have 22 of our own personal, life-size Zen gardens, aka tent pads. 

We regularly rake the tent pads and sweep the borders.  No weeds are allowed in the tent pads.  The weeds, unfortunately, have not been given this information.  That or they've chosen to ignore it.  They continue to ignore the “no weed” rule at the house as well.  It’s a conspiracy!  That said, I have become quite proficient with a hoe.

We get a regular afternoon wind in our little “bowl.”  Trees plus wind equals leaves, branches, and those obnoxious little seed pods in the campsites.  This is not allowed.  We have a gas-powered leaf-blower to help us keep the campsites free of debris – even if it’s natural.

After spending last summer in the wilderness, it almost feels like we’re working in a city park rather than a campground.

Welcome to Ashton, Idaho

The Warm River Campground sits nine miles from Ashton, Idaho, population 1,211.  At least, that’s what the sign says.  This small town, situated between two scenic byways (the Mesa Falls Scenic Byway and the Teton Scenic Byway), caters to tourists, locals, and of course, the campers that visit our site and the other campgrounds in the Island Park area. 

The local grocery store, Dave’s Jubilee, offers grocery and sundry items, has a deli and a really great produce department.  Dave’s Jubilee is affiliated with Associated Foods, so we’re finding all the products we’re accustomed to buying.  It also has a decent selection of beer and wine.  We introduced ourselves on an early morning visit and they were happy to open their safe to make change for our petty cash fund. This was nice since the nearest Wells Fargo bank is in Rexburg, 28 miles away.

We've found three restaurants so far.  El Rincon, the Mexican restaurant, was quite authentic.  Of course, you know a Mexican restaurant is authentic when everyone is speaking Spanish but you.  511 Main has a classic soda fountain feel and features pizza, sandwiches and soups.  We haven’t tried their pizza yet but the soups and sandwiches are quite good.

Our company orientation was held at the Trails End Restaurant.  The interior is designed to resemble a hunting lodge, complete with the heads of animals on the far wall.  They have a white buffalo head.  I understand that Native Americans considered the white buffalo sacred, so I really hope it is a fake.  But back to the food – we’ll have to reserve judgment as it is pretty tough to mess up turkey and cheese on white bread with lettuce and tomato, potato chips, and Chips Ahoy cookies.

For those of you who don’t camp, Ashton has two motels, a combined motel/RV park, and log cabin rentals. 

We found a small liquor store on inside of Lenz Electronics on Main Street.  The store owner was sitting on a lawn chair in front of the store, and as we approached he followed us in and directed us past the clothing and electronics to the liquor section.  The store reminds me of the small general stores we saw in movies and on TV. 

Ashton has two hardware stores, one of which sells fishing licenses.  We’re still talking ourselves into buying the high-priced out-of-state fishing licenses, so we haven’t been there yet. 

The library at Ashton charged us a mere $10 for a library card.  We couldn't get our money out fast enough.  It’s a small library, but it has everything we’re looking for – books, movies, and internet service, just in case our DSL decides to take a long vacation.

There are five churches here in Ashton.  We had a very pleasant encounter with the Ashton Christian Fellowship when the pastor visited with us to arrange for baptisms in the Warm River.  The baptisms happened last Sunday at site 13; the small group who had gathered to welcome three new believers also welcomed us to participate in the service.  It was inspiring. 

A bit of interesting trivia:  Ashton hosts the American Dog Derby, which is the oldest dog sled race in the lower 48 states.  This historic dog sled race runs from Ashton to Cascade Corner of Yellowstone Park.  If you’re interested in watching the 97^th running, it will be held February 13 – 15, 2014.

I think we’re going to enjoy being part of the extended community of Ashton.